


Lost and Found

by wraithe



Series: Echelonlab Writing Challenges [1]
Category: 30 Seconds to Mars
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 11:41:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14111595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wraithe/pseuds/wraithe
Summary: For the Echelonlab writing challenge on Tumblr.Prompt = ShoesA short piece of Shannon related fluff





	Lost and Found

Shannon groaned and scratched the stubble on his chin. They were already running twenty minutes behind schedule this morning and he hadn’t even had his first cup of coffee. He kicked at the blankets that had fallen to the floor, hoping to find what he was looking for underneath them but all that was there was garishly decorated hotel carpeting.

“Can’t you wear another pair?” Zola asked impatiently as she whisked through the room, hands full of their day’s provisions. She stopped to load water bottles and fruit into a backpack while she watched Shannon continue to rub his eyes and turn things over in his stocking feet.

“No. Can’t you start some coffee?” He groused back. Seeing the reproachful look on Zola’s face he immediately softened. “They’re the only comfortable shoes I brought with me.”

“Well it turns out that was a bad idea, wasn’t it?” she chuckled in return before moving to the small hotel coffee pot. It was one of the pod kinds, not the ridiculously complicated contraption Shannon had at home and considering how tired she was this morning, she was thankful for its relative simplicity. “Are they in the bathroom?”

“No,” Shannon said, his irritated tone implying he had already looked there but he immediately popped around the corner to check anyway. He emerged again less than a minute later. “I just don’t understand where they could be Zo. I’ve checked everywhere.”

Almost on cue, the door to the adjoining room opened and they were joined by the third and most important member of their traveling party. “Here, Daddy, look! Harry is ready to come meet Mickey with us too!”

The tiny hazel eyed girl stood in the middle of the room, holding up a stuffed teddy bear that was bigger than she was. At some point, he had been ‘dressed’ for his outing in a baseball cap, polka dot socks, and Shannon’s missing shoes. “Pearl!” Zola scolded but Shannon laughed and took the bear, setting it aside to pick up his daughter, dancing her around so that the yellow taffeta skirt of her Belle costume twirled out just like in the ballroom scene from her favorite movie. They had watched it together what felt like hundreds of times, at home on their couch, on her portable player to keep her from bouncing from seat to seat on the bus, in strange hotel rooms late at night to comfort her and help her drift of to sleep after Zola had read her stories until her voice was hoarse. She would be starting school soon and there would need to be more stability, more normalcy in her life soon. No more sleeping on tour buses or spontaneous visits to the Magic Kingdom. It made him all the more determined to enjoy their time together now.

“Sorry, Mademoiselle Belle, but I’m the only Beast you’re allowed to dance with.” He continued twirling her around the hotel room while Pearl belly laughed and Zola looked on, his perfect little family, the one he never thought he’d have, the most unexpectedly important things in his whole world.

“Silly Daddy,” Pearl giggled breathlessly when he finally let her go. “But you’re Mommy’s Beast. I need my own.”

Shannon’s heart clutched in his chest as he sat down on the edge of the bed to pull on his sneakers. The thought of his precious Pearl leaving him one day was more than he wanted to contemplate. “You’re four,” he pointed out. “Only teddys for now. Harry will have to do until then.”

She handed him her own shoes, tiny mary janes that he wondered from where they had been produced. “Can you put mine on too?” she asked as she took a seat beside him.

“I’ll get them,” Zola offered but Pearl immediately snatched them back from her.

“No, I want Daddy to do them!” she protested with all the social grace of the preschooler she was.

Shannon took the shoes and knelt down on the carpet in front of her with a grin. “Still a Daddy’s girl I see,” he said with an apologetic glance in Zola’s direction.

“Always Daddy. Always and forever,” Pearl told him.

Shannon stopped, his heart full as he clutched the tiny shoes. He kissed Pearl on top of the carefully coiffed princess curls that her mother had probably gotten up an hour early to do for her, before pressing their foreheads together. “Always. Always and forever,” he echoed.

 


End file.
